I Hate Missions Like These
by analogwatch
Summary: Duo has to go on a mission, but he is injured. Can Heero help him heal? 12 shounen-ai, rated PG for language.
1. Prologue

I Hate Missions Like These

Prologue

Hmm... disclaimer, disclaimer... uh, I don't own Gundam W, or Duo or Trowa or Quatre or Wufei or Heero or Relena or... Um, I don't own much of anything, really. Just stupid little pointless things nobody wants anyway. Well... maybe I own this storyline. It's quite possible.

It's 1/2. Slash. Shounen-ai. Yaoi(Wait, no, no sex). Whatever the hell you want to call it. Don't flame me for it because it is a free country, after all. You've had your fair warning.

Oh yeah, I let my friend put fake nails on me today, so please excuse any typos I may miss.

Yes, this prologue is in third person. Yes, the second chapter is in Duo's POV. Yes, the third chapter is in Heero's POV. Yes, I bounce around. I suppose I could rewrite this prologue to be in Quatre's POV if you really wanted me to, but I couldn't think of any other options at the time. I'm sorry if it bothers you!

* * *

Duo sighed as he pushed down the screen on his laptop. "I hate missions like these." He tossed his braid over his shoulder, glaring at the morning sun seeping through his window. He'd have to remember to close the drapes later. 

"Missions like what?" Quatre queried cheerfully from the doorway to Duo's room. He had his brush halfway through his still-damp hair.

Duo stood up, deciding now was as good of a time as any to draw the drapes. "I have to go blow up a desert base all by myself. I like solo missions, but I think this one's more suited to your abilities than mine."

Quatre shrugged, continuing to brush his hair. "It wasn't assigned to me, Duo. Obviously they believe that you have the ability to do it."

"But still..." Duo whined, pulling his duffel bag from the top shelf of his bookcase. "I don't want to do it!" Hastily he packed the essentials -- two changes of clothing, a brush, soap, his handgun, and ammo.

"When do you have to leave?"

Duo checked his watch. "Half an hour. Hey, Quatre, do you want to maintain communications with me and stuff?"

Quatre smiled. "Of course, Duo. I'd love to help."

"Thanks, buddy. I really appreciate it." Duo grinned back, throwing his duffel bag over his shoulder and jauntily walking out the door.

TWENTY MINUTES LATER

"Do you read, Quatre?" Duo asked from the cockpit of Deathscythe, still making preparations to leave.

"Loud and clear, Duo. Ten minutes 'till mission commencement. Is Deathscythe nearly ready?"

Duo pushed a few more buttons. "Almost . . . " He grinned triumphantly. "Got it!"

"Gundam Pilot 02, you are cleared to leave, nine minutes ahead of schedule. I'm proud of you, Duo." Quatre grinned on his end of the line.

Duo gave him a sarcastic look in return. "Gee, thanks, Quatre, I love you too. Let's go, Deathscythe!"

And thus began the mission to blow up the Sonora Base, located somewhere near where the border between New Mexico, Arizona, and Mexico formerly existed.

* * *

Short, hai, but it's only a lead-in to the rest of the story. R/R, please! 


	2. Chapter 1

I Hate Missions Like These  
  
Chapter 1  
  
Hmm... disclaimer, disclaimer... uh, I don't own Gundam W, or Duo or Trowa or Quatre or Wufei or Heero or Relena or... Um, I don't own much of anything, really. Just stupid little pointless things nobody wants anyway. Well... maybe I own this storyline. It's quite possible.  
  
It's 1/2. Slash. Shounen-ai. Yaoi(Wait, no, no sex). Whatever the hell you want to call it. Don't flame me for it because it is a free country, after all. You've had your fair warning.  
  
Yes, the prologue is in third person. Yes, this chapter is in Duo's POV. Yes, the third chapter is in Heero's POV. Yes, I bounce around. I suppose I could rewrite this prologue to be in Quatre's POV if you really wanted me to, but I couldn't think of any other options at the time. I'm sorry if it bothers you!

* * *

Deathscythe shuddered violently with the explosion from the bomb I had planted, and I swore. I adjusted the controls and got Deathscythe to take precisely three steps before the second explosion struck. I had miscalculated my position, planted the second bomb too close... I got jostled, as well. My head struck the side of the cockpit, and all went black.  
  
"Duo! Duo, respond!" Quatre's voice pleaded over the comm.  
  
I blinked, my eyelids fluttering open. Various systems were screaming at me, and all I could see on the left side of my vision was red. I wiped a hand across my forehead, only interrupting the flow of blood. "Yeah, Quatre?"  
  
"Duo, are you alright?" Quatre asked.  
  
"I think so. Quatre... how long was I out for?"  
  
"We lost contact with you about ten minutes ago. Why?"  
  
Ten minutes? "Did I complete the mission?"  
  
"Yes. The Sonora Base is over ninety-five percent destroyed. The other five percent is beyond repair and about to collapse any second."  
  
At least I had done that. I unfastened my harness and winced. The pressure had bruised me at the least. I pulled out the first aid kid and began gingerly tending to my wounds.  
  
"Duo... When are you coming back?" Quatre quietly asked.  
  
"I'm not exactly sure, Quatre. Probably as soon as I finish this." I winced again, dabbing the alcohol on the cut on my forehead.  
  
"All right, Duo. We'll be waiting." The quiet beep that ensued informed me that the connection was closed.  
  
I finished tending my wounds; then started the long journey home with only my own thoughts to sustain me.

SOME TIME LATER  
  
"Duo! Welcome back!" Quatre smiled, opening the door for me.  
  
"Thanks, Quatre." I limped cautiously inside.  
  
Trowa stepped forward, taking my bag of possessions from me. "Let me take this to your room for you."  
  
I blinked, near shock. Everyone was so civil...  
  
Wufei looked up from his book, then back down, assured I was no trouble in the sorry state I was in. "Hello, Maxwell."  
  
Even Wufei was being civil!  
  
Heero, however, grabbed my shoulder, roughly turning me around. Scratch that last thought -- nearly everyone was civil.  
  
"Hn. You did it wrong," He noted, pointing at the gauze pad taped to my forehead.  
  
"You try taping a gauze pad to your forehead when you can't see it..." I muttered.  
  
Heero looked me once up and down – it made me uncomfortable, having his eyes roving over my body. I could tell his inspection paused at various key places – my injured arm cradled in my other hand, the blood stains on my clothing which had obviously soaked through from my injuries, my poor posture from the pain. "Come with me." Heero let go of my shoulder, turning on his heel and going to his room.  
  
I looked to Quatre with a pleading look on his face. He just shrugged, so I sighed, following Heero. Some help Quatre was.  
  
I noticed the room he used hardly looked lived in – the only evidence of an occupant was the laptop on the desk and the boots on the floor next to his bed.  
  
"Sit." He pointed to a chair sitting next to the window. I highly doubted that he used it ordinarily, but I obeyed.  
  
"Let me see your arm." He ordered, holding out his hand. Memories of the time he had reset his own femur came flowing back and I pulled back slightly.  
  
He narrowed his Prussian eyes. "Let me see your arm, Duo." When I did not respond, he took a hold of the arm. I quietly cried out in pain, but did not resist.  
  
He pushed my sleeve up to my shoulder, inspecting the arm. He kept moving it around, sending shoots of pain up my arm.  
  
And then, he uttered the words I feared most from a boy like him.  
  
"It's broken."  
  
Maybe I could convince him... "Let's go to the hospital, then!" Please, please, please let it work...  
  
"I'll have to reset it."  
  
No! Nonononononononono! "But Heero..."  
  
"Duo..." Heero sighed. "If you don't reset it, it won't heal correctly and then I'll have to reset it because I know you'd never break your own arm."  
  
Damn, he knew me well.  
  
"Well, Heero.... Maybe we could get a doctor to do it. You know, someone who knows what they're doing?" I hoped that was a good enough reason.  
  
"I know what I'm doing. Let me reset it." Heero tightened his grip on my forearm slightly. Not enough to cause pain, really, but enough to prevent me from slipping away.  
  
"Fine, Heero. But first, could we numb it or something? I really don't want to have to focus on the pain—"  
  
A kiss?! Heero Yuy kissing me?!  
  
He had pressed his lips to mine in such a ragged way it seemed it was a last-minute decision. I let my eyes slowly close, enjoying the moment. After all, it probably wouldn't happen again.  
  
I was mildly aware of him moving his hands, but I wasn't exactly sure where. All I wanted to do was take the kiss as far as I could. I parted my lips, inviting him to enter. He did so, and I felt him tasting me. I slipped my own tongue in to battle with his, but he pulled his tongue away, breaking off the kiss. I was about to protest when he pressed his lips to mine again and again in a series of shorter, gentler kisses.  
  
Just when I got used to those, he let the last kiss linger. Such a wonderful moment... I wanted to live it forever.  
  
Until my eyes shot open, white-hot pain filling my vision and body. He had wrenched my bones back into place without warning! So that's what the kiss was for...  
  
But not even a perfect soldier would kiss like that just to distract.  
  
He pulled away, breaking the kiss again. I could almost see a look of sadness in his eyes.  
  
Almost.  
  
"I'm sorry about that, Duo."  
  
I grimaced slightly. "About what, Heero? The kiss or my arm?"  
  
"Both. I shouldn't have forced that kiss onto you. You probably don't even like me anyway." He pulled out a bandage, binding my upper arm. "You needed your arm to be fixed, however."  
  
I blinked, looking at him. "Do you like me, Heero?"  
  
"Perhaps."  
  
Perhaps? That was all?  
  
Well... perhaps it was only lust I felt for him. Perhaps not even that – it may only be a crush, nothing more. I remembered earlier, when I hadn't liked him looking over me. I felt stupid, really – it was only me being self-conscious.  
  
I found that I had been gazing at Heero. His supple thighs were visible through the tight spandex pants, and the green tank top barely hid his chest muscles. His bare arms allowed an unobstructed view of his strong muscles contracting and relaxing under the skin. I ached to touch that chest, to graze my fingertips over those legs, to have those strong arms wrapped about me.  
  
Heero not so gently taking the gauze pad off of my forehead interrupted my thoughts. It had stuck to the scab, and I could feel the blood oozing out again. "Ouch! Heero, can you be a little more gentle?"  
  
Heero wiped away the blood, then cleaned the cut with hydrogen peroxide.  
  
Damn. I hate hydrogen peroxide.  
  
"ITAI!!" I cried, pulling back.  
  
"Duo stop moving!" Heero sounded exasperated.  
  
"You're going to kill me!" I had covered the wound with my hand in an attempt to keep him from injuring me further.  
  
Heero simply pulled my hand away with little effort on his part, wiping the blood from my hand and my forehead(again). "Duo, if the original injuries didn't kill you, I don't see how anything I can do to you will."  
  
I hissed with the next impact of hydrogen peroxide to the gash, but cold air rushed over my forehead, soothing the sting and sending a cold chill down my spine. I looked up as best as I could to find Heero blowing gently onto the hydrogen peroxide. I shivered involuntarily.  
  
Heero stopped, unwrapping a gauze pad. He pressed it against my forehead, then grabbed my uninjured hand, placing it against the gauze. He let his hand linger for a second, then pulled it away, tearing off tape and placing it on the edges of the gauze.  
  
I decided now was as good of a time as ever to act. "You like me, don't you?"  
  
"Perhaps, I said."  
  
I pressed further. "What do you see in someone like me?"  
  
Heero pressed the last strip of tape down. "I'm not quite sure, Duo. You have this strange aura about you. Something that just pulled me to you." He clasped the hand that I had held down the gauze with. "You're a very mysterious person, Duo Maxwell."  
  
"One could say the same thing about you, Heero Yuy." I smirked.  
  
We stared at each other in silence for a few minutes. I liked the look of his face: sharp and angular, but still gentle, in a strange, soldierly sort of way. I was wishing that he'd kiss me again.  
  
"How bad are the wounds under your clothes?" Heero asked tentatively.  
  
"I'm not sure. I wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible, so I didn't have time to check." I slipped my hand from his. "Could you check for me?" I asked sheepishly.  
  
Heero seemed to contemplate the possible results of such an excursion. "Are you sure you can't do it yourself, Duo?"  
  
I sought a seemingly acceptable excuse as to why I couldn't. I was flirting and he probably knew it, but I didn't care. "I can't see my own back, Heero."  
  
"You're a terrible flirt, Duo. You do like me, I'm assuming, since you seem so incapable." He gestured to my arm. "You can't even set a bone.  
  
"So?! When you set your leg you had both hands free!" I pouted at the insult to my ability to care for myself.  
  
"Can you move your right arm, then?" He crossed his arms over his chest. "And if not, are you coordinated enough to undress yourself with one hand?"  
  
I tried to lift my injured arm, but the pain halted that action after a few centimeters. "No..." So, I brought up my left hand, but only succeeded in breaking the first clasp on my black shirt. "Shit. Make that two 'no's."  
  
Heero sighed. "I can't believe you. Conning me into this ..." He stepped forward, quickly yet gently shedding me of both shirts I wore. The second, white shirt, I noted painfully, was extremely stained with my own blood. 'Damn this mission! I hate hand-to-hand combat!'  
  
"Stand up." He backed away slightly.  
  
I did as he requested, standing. As I did so, I made the mistake of looking down at myself. I was simply covered in cuts and bruises. Some of the cuts ran rather deep, and judging by the size and shape of some of the bruises, I had damaged my ribs.  
  
"Damn, Duo, the hell'd you have to do?!" Heero exclaimed, walking around to see my back.  
  
"Destroy a base... unfortunately, when I planted the bombs I was discovered and had to fight tons of guys.... Y'know, the usual."  
  
"Duo... "Heero sounded a bit strained, as if he was trying to hold in emotion. "... this is far worse than the usual."

* * *

Owari chapter 1, yay! Sorry it took so long, but lately I've been bogged down with band stuff.... Evil evil competitions. --; I'm not as busy now, so here's the chapter!


	3. Chapter 2

I Hate Missions Like These  
  
Chapter 2  
  
Disclaimer? Um, it's been a while since I've written one of these. I don't own Gundam W, I've never owned Gundam W... I never WILL own Gundam W ;; It'd be a great Christmas present, though!  
  
This story is 1/2, slash, shounen-ai. Whatever. It's got Heero, and Duo, and cuddlyness, and stuff. If that bothers you, turn back now! (how you lasted to the third chapter, I have no idea.)  
  
The prologue is in third person, the first chapter is in first-person from Duo's perspective, and this is in first-person from Heero's perspective.

* * *

I stared blankly at the broken, battered boy in front of me, my last words lingering in my head. 'This is far worse than the usual,' my mind echoed again. "You didn't have an easy time of it, did you?" I whispered, still trying to hide emotion.  
  
"When is a mission ever easy?" Duo asked, trying to seem like his normal happy-go-lucky self, like he was trying to hide the horrors he'd endured.  
  
I shook my head. "You're downplaying this, Duo." I grabbed the hydrogen peroxide again and a handful of cotton balls, dabbing gently at the cuts and trying to ignore his hisses and winces. As unhygenic as it was, I even blew on the cuts a few times. I may be the perfect soldier, but I still don't want to cause a... friend... unwarranted pain. Is that all I really thought of him as? I just kissed the boy, and yet that cold, calculating part of my brain still only wants to register him as a 'friend.'  
  
Still, a part of me wanted him as much more than just a 'friend.'  
  
Duo's voice cut into my thoughts, fully bringing back my attention. "I think that side's clean now..."  
  
I'd apparently been cleaning the same wound the whole time I was in my reverie, which had probably caused Duo quite a bit of pain. "Sorry." I muttered, moving on to a different area. I didn't want to know what'd happened, but yet, part of me wanted to know who had caused him to suffer like this. The soldier inside wanted to go and exact revenge, even though I was nearly positive that Duo'd massacred them all anyway.  
  
OZ would suffer for what they'd done to me, to Duo. To all of us, in one way or another.  
  
Duo sighed, the breath in ragged and forced. "You want to know what happened, don't you? You know I'm not telling the whole truth. You've always been able to tell if I wasn't telling the whole truth."  
  
"You can tell me if you want to, Duo. I won't force you." I made sure I focused on the wound and not his face, because I knew that my eyes would be pleading with him to tell me what'd happened.  
  
He bit his lip (I'd snuck a peek, careful not to lock my eyes with his) and seemed to be trying to find a way to start. "Well, everything seemed to be going to plan, right? I set the first bomb in exactly the right spot, right where I'd planned it on the map. I got ambushed, though, before I got to the second location. I took quite a few hits... They grabbed me, threw me to the ground, beat me with their rifle butts. They kicked me until I couldn't get up, then kicked me some more. It took all of my emergy to just get up again. I lucked out; they'd left me for dead, so I set up the bomb right there. I was confused, I guess. Disoriented. I barely manged to fight my way back to Deathscythe."  
  
I brought my face up to meet Duo's, shock and disgust growing upon my face. "And then you tried to detonate the bombs..."  
  
"And they were too close. I'd planned it wrong, like some stupid idiot." Duo's fists clenched and his bottom lip twitched a few times.  
  
I know what I did next was very unlike me. I don't think I'd ever done anything like this before, but I know I want to do it again. I stood up, and embraced the boy. I hugged him as tightly as I dared without hurting him. To my glee, I felt one of his arms come up and embrace me back, quite tightly. It was a very nice feeling.  
  
He nestled his face into my neck, and I realized he was crying. I knew what crying was - I personally haven't done t in a great many years. I had been taught to bury my emotions long ago, but they accounted for me falling in love.  
  
Then again, they didn't think I'd be gay, either. It makes sense, though. I suppose I find the strength of men attractive. The more like a soldier he is, the more attractive I find him.  
  
Duo has proved to me many times over that he is a very strong soldier, in many ways. I should be finding these tears sickening, like I did with everyone else, but with Duo it was different. Maybe it was because I had feelings for him to begin with, but his tears of frustration only made me want to hold him closer, to plant getle kisses on his forehead, his cheeks. I held him a bit tighter. "Am I hurting you, Duo?" I whispered.  
  
His head moved minutely side to side, then I heard a quiet and slightly muffled "Don't let me go, Heero... please, don't ever let me go."  
  
I'm not sure how long we stood there, with Duo quietly crying into my shoulder, but it was long enough for the room to begin to grow dark. "I should probably finish patching you up, Duo..."  
  
His hand slowly slid down my back and I grudgingly let him go to continue bandaging his wounds. Now that the blood was cleaned away, it was obvious that he only had a large mass of small cuts, mostly bullet grazes, except for one gash that looked like it came from a knife across his stomach. If he'd been any closer to that knife, he'd have been disemboweled.  
  
"All done." I quietly announced upon completion. His torso was nearly entirely covered with bandages, but most of them would be coming off in the next few days. His arm was bandaged and secured in a sling.  
  
Duo carefully reached up his left arm, inspecting some of the bandaging, then grinned at me. "Thanks, Heero. I feel... a lot better." He bit his lower lip, cautiously reaching out his left hand to take my right.  
  
I let my perfect soldier go, at least for him, and grinned broadly at him. "I'm very glad for --"  
  
I was cut off as he suddenly pressed his lips to mine again. The kiss seemed hungry, like he'd wanted to kiss me for a much longer time than just this afternoon, like he'd wanted ME for as long as he'd known me.  
  
I was happy to oblige.

* * *

Owari.  
  
That's it, that's the end. I hope you enjoyed it, even though it took me like three years to finally finish it, hahaha.  
  
Maybe I'll finally write a chapter for Nazo no Yume.


End file.
